June 2, 2014: Woke up on the right side of the bed.

[myonlydefense]

Everyone's been reassuring him: this is only temporary. Stiles can't decide if he's happy about it or if it's the worst news of his life.

He's wanted to be a superhero since he was old enough to understand what one was. Sure, later in life he begrudged being the metaphorical Robin to Scott's Batman all the time, but he'd take being a sidekick over being a bystander any day. And now, he can actually do it.

So he doesn't have web shooters or a cool costume; that much he'll leave to the professionals. All the same, waking up able to crawl on walls and possessing unnatural athletic and gymnastic talents? After all the Spider-Man comics that Stiles read as a kid, it seems like a crime not to use the powers in and of itself.

Great responsibility and all that.

But he'd be remiss to have all of these powers and not to show Hermione. She knows as well as anyone how much he hates being the literal kind of powerless, and he knows that she'll indulge him if he decides to show her how he can hang on the ceiling now like it's entirely new and unusual around here. He shoots her a text to make sure she's around, and then heads over... probably faster than is proper decorum, but hey. He's excited.

He bounces on the balls of his feet, hands shoved into his pockets to hold back any unnecessary flailing, and waits.

Comments

[cleverness]

After Remus' departure, Hermione's been a little more home-bound than usual. Any departure from the city makes her more aware of how unnerving it is that they don't understand the mechanism — that they can't even predict disappearances if they tried. The atmosphere around the house is sobering now that it's just Ron and herself, so when Stiles texts Hermione and asks to come over, Hermione's quick to encourage him.

By the time she hears the knock on the door, there's a fresh pitcher of lemonade on the counter and ice cream in the freezer. With a smile, Hermione opens the front door, brows raising when she finds Stiles hopping slightly on the spot.

"Someone looks like they're having a great day," she remarked, stepping aside to let Stiles in. "Come in, Stiles, please."

[myonlydefense]

The door opens quicker than he can stop fidgeting and he gives Hermione an excited look as she steps back to let him in. He can't even stop for a breath, spinning on his heel to walk backward into Hermione's apartment so he doesn't have to waste any time before he starts blabbing.

"Um, today is awesome," he announces, singsong as he gestures to their general surroundings. "I thought that this place only inflicted pain and misery for fun, and now it's giving me superpowers. Hey, thanks for letting me drop by." It's not that he doesn't appreciate her hospitality so much as he has way, way too much to say to remember things like manners.

He jumps right back in. "I mean, it's probably all temporary. Everything around here is, right? But this is seriously... this shit? Doesn't happen to me, Hermione." Maybe he should have started at the beginning, but that takes so much time.

[cleverness]

Stiles sweeps into the house with hardly a pause, practically a force of nature as he somehow manages to navigate the front hall without falling. The grindylow hisses at the sudden intrusion, splaying its hands against the side of the tank for a few seconds before retreating into the plants. Ever since Remus' departure, it's grown increasingly aggravated, and Hermione levels it with a warning look before smiling at Stiles, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"You're always welcome to visit," she says quickly, locking the door behind them with a subtle wave of her wand. "Actually, it's really nice to have the company; I would love if you stopped by more often. But back to what you were saying... superpowers?"

Hermione hasn't been into the city yet today. Suddenly, she's wondering if she should pay the shop a visit.

"What kind of superpowers did the city give you? Are they dangerous?"

[myonlydefense]

Stiles turns to walk further into the apartment when he sees the grindylow scowl, taking a startled, slightly airborne step backward to get away. He lets out a startled noise, but does his best to swallow it, looking back at Hermione and doing his best to twist his face into something other than alarm.

"Right. Superpowers!" He can climb walls and has a legitimate spider-sense, but he still gets freaked out by a thing in a tank. Amazing. "So I woke up sticking to everything. Like, seriously, everything. Derek's place is probably a little worse for the... yeah, but anyway, so once I stopped tearing floorboards up and everything, I realized. They're spider powers, Hermione. Like, wall-crawling, spider-sensing... stuff!"

Maybe this wouldn't be that big of a deal to a witch. Maybe he's just excited because this stuff never happens to him. But c'mon. He's gotta tell someone. "I mean, I could probably go do some crime fighting right now, but I'm not gonna accidentally stick someone to death."

[cleverness]

Familiar though Hermione may be with Spider-Man, her first reaction to something being vastly out of the ordinary is to worry and assess. Spider powers don't come out of nowhere, she thinks; in fiction, she's fairly certain that the abilities were passed on by an actual spider, and in Darrow, Hermione is inclined to believe that there's been some trigger as well. She rushes to Stiles' side, her expression almost comically contrasting with his. Replace excitement with worry.

He's a good friend, and Hermione doesn't want to risk him being hurt.

"I don't understand. Did you do anything that might have caused this? Or were you bitten by some type of creature?" Hermione asked, carefully reaching out for Stiles' wrist and examining his fingers at closer length. She pulls out her wand, waving it in a circle through the air until she's conjured up a large magnifying glass that she allows to float in the air, staring at the pads of Stiles' fingers. "Don't misunderstand, I'm happy to learn that you have new powers if that's what makes you happiest, but I don't want to trust this too much before we've learned of its source."

[myonlydefense]

Hermione takes his hand and he lets her, sighing. She's not the first person to stare at his fingertips today, and he's sure she's not going to find anything. ...pretty sure. He watches her examine him with some level of apprehension, visibly relaxing when she doesn't seem to find anything unusual as she talks.

"Nothing bit me! No radioactive spiders, no exposure to gamma rays, no..." Invitations to Hogwarts. "Nothing exciting. I just woke up sticking to everything, and now I can climb walls and it's awesome!" She's actually looking with a magnifying glass. This would be hilarious if it didn't actually make him mildly concerned. "See anything other than my freakishly long fingers?"

[cleverness]

"I would actually be less alarmed if I had the slightest idea why these powers suddenly manifested in you," Hermione admits with a sigh, before waving away the magnifying glass, which dissolves into thin air. There's nothing that she can sense just at a glance, and given Stiles' enthusiasm, Hermione isn't sure if she wants to dampen his enjoyment further by asking for a blood sample.

"You look fine and healthy to me, and if there are changes in your anatomy, they're minute enough that I can't see them with a glass," she says, offering a small smile, hoping that she can be somewhat reassuring. "When you say that you've been sticking to things, does that mean that you've been producing some type of substance with your hands? Or is it more like the actual anatomy of spiders? Where I think the fingers should have some type of hair over the fingertips."

[myonlydefense]

"I am fine and healthy! Probably slightly underweight, but that's nothing new, just a super fun thing I deal with because you know. Genetics." He gives her another grin, purposely silly, and reaches out to gingerly touch her shoulder with his hand. It takes focus. He's not sure where it comes from, if it's some new neural connection or what, but he manages to make his hand stick lightly to the fabric of her sleeve before he lets go.

"It's not like I've turned into Post-It Note Man or something, though, I mean. I can stick to the ceiling. It's pretty sweet. But no, uh. Anatomy. Thank god."

[cleverness]

Hermione laughs under her breath, shaking her head. She knows that it isn't her place to make fun of Stiles for his enthusiasm — after all, she remembers the wonder and intrigue she'd felt upon first receiving that letter from Hogwarts. Reaching up to squeeze his hand, Hermione grins as she leans back against the side of the kitchen counter, loosely crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'd be willing to wager that there's at least one other person in Darrow who has or knows how your powers work," Hermione says, tilting her head. "And could probably train you in how to make the most of it. If you're able to climb ceilings on your own, imagine what you could do with a bit of instruction. Leap between buildings, perhaps. Climb to the tallest skyscraper."

[myonlydefense]

"Already talked to him. He gave me a few pointers. And since you know, I'm not going to be swinging from buildings any time soon, I'm confined to climbing on my walls and showing off to my esteemed colleagues like yourself." He hops on the counter and swings his feet, heels lightly hitting the cabinets. "But I appreciate you wanting to make sure that I'm the best superhero I can be. Can you do anything? Did anything happen to you?"

He pauses.

"I mean, aside from the whole 'born with inherent magic' thing."

[cleverness]

"You have a newfound power like this and you're not planning on stretching it to its limit? I confess, that surprises me a little," Hermione says, crossing her arms loosely over her chest and trying to imagine Stiles hopping around from rooftop to rooftop. Reaching for her wand, Hermione holds it gingerly in her hand, the warmth of the wand still clear against her skin.

"I don't think that anything's happened to me," she adds, twirling the tip of her wand lightly until she's able to generate a thread of spun sugar, spinning it until a spool of cotton candy is plucked out of the air. "My magic still works. And I haven't experienced any new powers that I'm aware of."